Peace Without Annexations and the Independence of Poland as Slogans of the Day in Russia

Published:Sotsial-Demokrat, No. 51, February 29, 1916.

      Published according to theSotsial-Demokrattext.Source:Lenin
	  Collected Works,

      UNKNOWN,[19xx],

      Moscow,Volume 22,

      pages137-140.Translated:UNKNOWN UNKNOWNTranscription\Markup:D. WaltersPublic Domain:Lenin Internet Archive

      2000

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TheBerne resolution of
our Party declared:
“One of the means of fooling the working class is pacifism, the
preaching of peace in the abstract. At the present time, peace
propagandaunaccompaniedby a call for revolutionary
mass action can only have the effect of spreading illusions and
demoralising the proletariat; for it serves to imbue the
proletariat with confidence in the humanitarianism of the
bourgeoisie and to convert it into a plaything in the hands of
the secret diplomacy of the belligerent countries.” (See
=Sotsial-Demokrat[2]No. 40, and “Socialism and
War”).[1]

Theopponents of our point of view on the question of peace, who
are numerous among Russian emigres, but not among the Russian
workers, have never taken the trouble to analyse these
propositions. Theoretically irrefutable, these propositions are
receiving striking and practical confirmation as a result of the
turn affairs have taken in our country.

Asis well known, from its very first issue,Rabocheye
Utro,the organ of the St. Petersburg leaglist-Liquidators,
which is ideologically supported by the Organisation Committee,
adopted a social-chauvinist “defencist” position. It published
the “defencist” manifestoes of the St. Petersburg and Moscow
social-chauvinists. Both manifestoes,inter alia,express the idea of “peace without annexations,” and No. 2 ofRabocheye Utro,which particularly stresses that slogan
prints it in Italics and calls it “a line which provides the
country with a way out of theimpasse.” It is calumny
to call us chauvinists, the paper seems to say; we fully accept
the most “democratic” even “truly socialist” slogan of “peace
without annexations.”

Nodoubt Nicholas the Bloody finds it to his advantage to have
such a slogan advanced by his loyal subjects at the present
time. Tsarism, basing itself on the landowners and the
bourgeoisie, led its armies to rob and enslave Galicia (not to
mention the treaty tocarveup Turkey, etc.). The
armies of the no less predatory German imperialists repulsed the
Russian robbers and pushed them, not only out of Galicia, but
also out of “Russian Poland” (in this struggle for the interests
of both these cliques, hundreds of thousands of Russian and
German workers and peasants fell on the battlefield). The slogan
“peace without annexations” thus serves as an excellent
“plaything in the hands of the secret diplomacy” of tsarism; the
latter can now say: Look, we have been outraged; we have been
robbed, deprived of Poland; we are opposed to annexations!

Howwell the role of lackeys to tsarism “suits” the
social-chauvinists ofRabocheye Utrois particularly
evident from an article in the first issue of that paper,
entitled “Polish Emigration.” “The past months of the war,” we
read, “have engendered in the minds of broad strata of the
Polish people a deep striving towards independence.” Of course,
before the war there was no such thing!! “In the social
consciousness of broad strata of Polish democracy the mass”
[evidently this is a misprint; it ought to read “the idea, the
thought,” etc.] “of the national independence of Poland has
triumphed”.... “Before Russian democracy the Polish question
looms up importunately in all its magnitude....” “The Russian
liberals” refuse to give plain answers to the burning questions
“about Poland’s independence....”

Nicholasthe Bloody, Khvostov, Chelnokov, Milyukov and Co. are,
of course, wholly in favour of the independence of
Poland—heart and soul in favour of itnow,that,in practice,this slogan meansvictoryover
Germany, which deprived Russia of Poland. Let us not forget that
the creators of “Stolypin’s Labour
Party”[3]before the war,
were wholly and unreservedly opposed to the slogan of
self-determination of nations, opposed to Poland’s right of
secession, and that they put up the opportunist Semkovsky for
the noble purpose of defending tsarist oppression in Poland. Now
that Poland has been taken from Russia they arein
favourof the “independence” of Poland(from Germany; but
about this they maintain a discreet silence).

Youwill not deceive the class-conscious workers of Russia,
Messrs. social-chauvinists! Your
“October” 1915[4]slogans of
independence of  Poland and peace without annexations are in
practice servility to tsarism, which precisely at the present
time, precisely in February 1916, deems it necessary to
camouflage its war with fine words
about “peace withoutannexations” (driving Hindenburg
out of Poland) and the independence of Poland (independent of
Wilhelm, but dependent upon Nicholas II).

ARussian Social-Democrat who has not forgotten his programme
argues differently. Russian democracy, he will say, having Great
Russian democracy in mind first of all and most of all, for it
alone has always enjoyed liberty of language in
Russia—Russian democracy has undoubtedlygainedfrom the fact thatat presentRussia does not oppress
Poland and does not hold it by force. The Russian proletariat
has undoubtedly gained-from the fact that it does not oppress
one of the peoples it helped to oppress yesterday. German
democracy has undoubtedly lost, for as long as the German
proletariat tolerates the oppression of Poland by Germany it
will remain in a position worse than that of a slave, in the
position of a servitor helping to keep others enslaved. The only
ones who have really gained are the Junkers and the bourgeoisie
of Germany.

Hence,Russian Social-Democrats must unmask the deception of the
people perpetrated by tsarism now that the slogans of “peace
without annexations” and “independence of Poland” are being
advanced in Russia; for in the present situation both these
slogans express the desire to continue the war and a
justification of this desire. We must say: No war for the sake
of recapturing Poland! The Russian people do not want to become
Poland’s oppressor again!

Buthow can we help liberate Poland from Germany! Is it not our
duty to help in this? Of course it is, but not by supporting the
imperialist war of tsarist, or of bourgeois, or even of
bourgeois republican Russia, but by supporting the revolutionary
proletariat
of Germany,  by  supporting  those  elements  in  the
Social-Democratic Party of Germany who are fighting against thecounter-revolutionarylabour party of Südekum, Kautsky
and Co. Kautsky very recently demonstrated his
counter-revolutionary nature in a most flagrant manner: on
November 26, 1915, he described street demonstrations as an
“adventurism” (just as Struve before January 9, 1905, declared
that there are no revolutionary people in Russia) and yet, on
November 30, 1915, ten thousand working women demonstrated in
Berlin!

Allthose who want to stand for the freedom of nations, for the
right of nations to self-determination,not
hypocritically,not in the Südekum, Plekhanov, Kautsky
fashion, but sincerely, must be opposed to the war because of
the oppression of Poland; they must bein favourof the
right of secession from Russia for those nations which Russia isnow,oppressing: the Ukraine, Finland, etc. Those who
do not wish to be social-chauvinists in deeds must support only
those elements in the Socialist Parties of all countries which
are frankly, directly and immediately working for the
proletarian revolution in their own countries.

Not“peace without annexations,” but peace to the cottages, war
on the palaces; peace to the proletariat and the toiling masses,
war on the bourgeoisie!

[1]Seepresent edition, Vol.21, “The Conference of the R.S.D.L.P. Groups
Abroad”.—Ed.

[2][PLACEHOLDER.]

[3]Leninis referring to a group of Mensheviks who adapted
      themselves to the Stolypin regime, accepted it and tried to
      obtain the tsarist government’s permission to set up a legal
      "labour" party, with the price being abandonment of the
      programme of the R.S.D.L.P.

[4][PLACEHOLDER.]